Nancy L. Johnson: “What big eyes you have, Grandmother,'' said Little Red Riding Hood. That map represented what 2,000 acres of drilling…”

“What big eyes you have, Grandmother,'' said Little Red Riding Hood. That map represented what 2,000 acres of drilling platforms would look like in this ANWR plain plus the areas affected by the drilling and the roads needed to connect the drilling platforms. Because everyone knows that ANWR, this pristine part, this small coastal plain, has no deep wells. It may have several shallow wells. So you are going to need a number of platforms. Each one of those platforms is only a hundred acres. It only takes a hundred acres for a platform and an airstrip. So this amendment allows 15 to 20 platforms. Nobody has ever suggested that more than 16 were needed. But by the time you string those platforms together with all the roads, which this amendment does not count, and the land that will be affected by the people on those platforms, the waste disposal, the animal response to the inhabitants, that is the kind of footprint 2,000 acres in practice will have on this coastal plain. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This is 2,000 acres of 100-acre per drilling pads. That adds up to have, with its roads, a huge impact on this area. That, of course, does not include the destruction wrought by mapping and waste disposal. Vote no on the Sununu amendment.”